EIC projects at World Space Week: practical steps toward living and operating sustainably in space

World Space Week 2025 uses the theme Living in Space to highlight technologies that make long duration presence and operations off Earth safer and more sustainable. Three European Innovation Council supported projects illustrate different parts of that transition. Each addresses a persistent bottleneck for expanded in-orbit activity. Phoenix 2 targets reliable and routine return logistics. Green SWaP targets in-space propellant production from water and sunlight. POWERSAT targets new ways to harvest energy in orbit for low-power electronics and inter-satellite links. Together they reflect how research grants and accelerator funding in the EU are being used to move concepts from laboratories toward flight demonstrations and potential commercial services.

Why the theme Living in Space matters for European strategy

The idea of living in space is now more operational than aspirational. Growing activity in low Earth orbit and beyond brings more missions, more hardware and a rising need for logistics, energy and propulsion systems that reduce environmental and safety risks. For European policymakers and investors the attraction is twofold. First, in-orbit capabilities such as reliable return logistics, in-space refuelling and lightweight power systems reduce mission costs and enable new business cases for life sciences, manufacturing and servicing. Second, building these capabilities within European industry supports strategic autonomy and supply chain resilience. The EIC funds projects at early and mid technology readiness levels to bridge the gap between research ideas and industrial demonstration. That makes the projects described here relevant not only for technical reasons but for wider industrial policy.

Phoenix 2 (Germany): a new approach to returning cargo from orbit

Phoenix 2 is an EIC Accelerator project led by ATMOS Space Cargo. It targets a practical problem that has gained attention as access to orbit gets cheaper. Sending payloads up is increasingly routine but bringing material back safely and affordably remains difficult. Phoenix 2 aims to change that by combining three recovery technologies into a reusable return system. The company says its design draws on data collected from a prior orbital mission called PHOENIX 1 and that real-world results are informing mission architecture, guidance and control and integration choices.

Key technical integrations and milestones for Phoenix 2 include the combination of an IAD with a high-velocity parachute and a heatshield to recover cargo safely. ATMOS has partnered with the European propulsion specialist ISPTech to integrate the HyNOx propulsion system. That integration is intended to provide improved manoeuvrability and precision de-orbit capability for planned missions starting in 2026. With EIC Accelerator backing ATMOS is moving toward completion of development, testing, validation with partners, the definition of manufacturing approaches and a commercialisation roadmap.

Phoenix 2 presents a clear operational goal: establish a sovereign, scalable return logistics infrastructure in Europe able to serve life sciences payloads, in-orbit manufacturing returns and potentially dual-use applications. This is an explicitly commercial and strategic ambition. Realising it depends on demonstrating repeatability, lowering per-return cost and scaling manufacturing while meeting safety and regulatory requirements around atmospheric reentry.

Green SWaP (Italy): converting sunlight and water into in-space propellant

Green SWaP is an EIC Pathfinder project coordinated by the University of Pisa. The consortium spans universities, research institutes and industry partners across Europe. Its objective is to produce propellants in space by using solar energy to transform water into hydrogen peroxide and hydrogen. The project draws inspiration from photosynthesis but adapts the concept to the constraints of the space environment, which include vacuum, microgravity, radiation exposure and strict mass and volume budgets.

Green SWaP is investigating three solar-based synthesis routes to produce H2O2 and H2 from water. That includes photocatalytic, photoelectrochemical and plasma-based approaches. The project targets several technology deliverables. These include a solar-powered module for propellant production, a high-test peroxide concentrator suitable for in-space operations, and innovative inflatable tanks for hydrogen storage. On the propulsion side the consortium plans to develop a 200 newton chemical thruster operating with hydrogen peroxide and a 1 newton solar thermal thruster using hydrogen.

Green SWaP is explicitly positioned in the EIC portfolio called In-Space Solar Energy Harvesting. In March 2025 the project announced a partnership with another Pathfinder project, Ice2Thrust.Space, also known as S4I2T. Ice2Thrust focuses on solar-electric water propulsion and in-situ resource utilisation. The partnership aims to promote cross-project visibility, joint outreach and technical exchanges. That alignment matters because in-space propellant production and in-space refuelling require coordination across propulsion architectures, docking and robotics systems and supply models.

POWERSAT (France): harvesting infrared and microwave energy in orbit

POWERSAT is an EIC Pathfinder project coordinated by Thales Research and Technology France. The project explores harvesting energy from parts of the solar spectrum that are underused in conventional photovoltaic systems. POWERSAT aims to capture solar infrared energy and microwave spillover from satellite antennas to power low-power embedded electronics and to enable inter-satellite communication links. The stated ambition is to reduce reliance on large photovoltaic arrays for these functions thereby lowering satellite mass and launch costs.

The POWERSAT consortium plans to produce five demonstrators. Four demonstrators will focus on capturing microwave energy and one on solar energy harvesting in the infrared. The solar energy demonstrator is aligned with ESA’s SOLARIS initiative. SOLARIS brings together policymakers, energy companies and space actors to assess the feasibility of space-based solar power systems that collect sunlight in space and transmit it to Earth. For SOLARIS related feasibility work Thales Alenia Space, the joint venture between Thales and Leonardo, was selected to work on enabling technologies including high-efficiency space solar panels, wireless power transmission and robotised assembly in orbit.

POWERSAT sits within a broader EIC Pathfinder portfolio called In-Space Solar Energy Harvesting that funds multiple complementary projects. The portfolio coordinates four working groups on solar cells, wireless power transmission, in-space green propulsion and system engineering. POWERSAT’s demonstrators are expected to feed into system level studies on how energy harvesting can reduce mass and enable new mission architectures.

How these projects fit in the EU innovation and space ecosystem

The three projects illustrate how the European Innovation Council and related EU research instruments are used across different maturity levels. The EIC Pathfinder supports early stage, high risk high reward technology research at low TRLs. The EIC Accelerator targets later stage ventures that need funding and business support to scale and commercialise innovations. Projects also interact with other EU and European actors including Horizon Europe funding routes and the European Space Agency. ESA activities such as SOLARIS show how mission-scale studies and industry contracts can dovetail with exploratory Pathfinder work to define roadmaps and feasibility analyses for systems that would require much larger investments and infrastructure.

Risks, viability and the hard steps ahead

All three projects address important problems. That does not guarantee rapid commercial impact. They share a set of common hurdles. Technical scaling from laboratory prototypes to space-qualified hardware is expensive and time consuming. Handling and storing concentrated oxidisers and hydrogen in space poses safety challenges that require robust engineering and regulatory approvals. Wireless power transfer and high-energy beaming raise questions about interference, atmospheric propagation losses and potential health and environmental impacts that must be studied. Demonstrator success on a bench or in a single mission does not always translate into a viable industrial supply chain or an affordable service. Market demand must exist at scale for the cost reductions to become meaningful, and that demand depends on broader adoption of in-orbit manufacturing, satellite servicing and modular spacecraft architectures.

The projects attempt to mitigate those risks by designing demonstrators, partnering with established industry players, aligning roadmap milestones with ESA and EIC ecosystems and focusing on specific use cases such as life sciences returns, debris removal and low-power embedded electronics. Even so, sustained public and private investment will be needed to move from demonstrators to routine services.

What to watch next

Key near-term indicators of progress include Phoenix 2’s integration tests with ISPTech and its schedule toward missions from 2026. For Green SWaP look for results from TRL4 testing of synthesis modules, performance data from the HTP concentrator and tests of the 200N chemical thruster and the 1N solar thermal thruster. For POWERSAT follow delivery and in-orbit testing plans for its five demonstrators and any published studies linking demonstrator performance to ESA SOLARIS feasibility assessments. More broadly monitor ESA and national agency involvement and any contractual steps that translate project results into funded demonstration missions or industrial adoption.

Project websites and the Horizon Europe database remain the primary public sources for more detail. The EIC Pathfinder portfolio pages also provide context on the wider In-Space Solar Energy Harvesting initiative that groups nine complementary projects and organises working groups across solar cells, wireless transmission, green propulsion and systems engineering.

Where to find more information

Project pages on the Horizon Europe database and the official project websites contain technical reports, consortium details and milestone updates. The EIC Pathfinder portfolio publishes newsletters and working group outputs that summarise cross-project activity. ESA publications on SOLARIS and partner releases from companies such as Thales Alenia Space and ISPTech provide additional context on system-level studies and feasibility work.

This article retains information supplied by the projects and the EIC. The initiatives described are promising but remain at different stages of development and face non-trivial technical, safety and commercialisation hurdles. Readers should treat early technical claims as indicative and expect further validation through peer review and flight demonstrations before wider industry adoption.

Disclaimer: This representation is intended for information and analysis. It does not represent the official view of the European Commission or any other organisation.